Celtic music is very popular indeed - I know a few establishments where I can hear it any time I want. But these people don't actually know any of the languages for the most part.

I now know Germans who can sing along to the chorus of "Pan Ddaw'r Wawr" without a damn idea what any of the words mean--people who would never in a million years have picked up a release from Twmpath or Meic Stevens.

Celtic music is very popular indeed - I know a few establishments where I can hear it any time I want. But these people don't actually know any of the languages for the most part.

The vast majority don't, no. Most Beethoven fans don't end up studying German either. But if even one in a hundred gives it a go, do you have any idea what that adds up to?

I know all the words to "Tunak Tunak Tun" but nobody learns Punjabi.

Au contraire! I taught myself Punjabi in order to decipher the songs of Gurdas Maan, among others. I know Americans who are studying Hindi, and it has nothing to do with how many people you can talk to in it. The reason you run into more learners of Celtic languages than Indic ones is that Celtic music has been big in the States since the Clancy Brothers whereas "Jai Ho" was most Americans' first exposure to an Indian-style pop song.

Au contraire! I taught myself Punjabi in order to decipher the songs of Gurdas Maan, among others. I know Americans who are studying Hindi, and it has nothing to do with how many people you can talk to in it.

Hindi and Punjabi are entirely different orders of magnitude - Hindi has been taught in Western universities for a long time, whereas I've never seen Punjabi offered. How difficult was it to find materials on it?

Talib wrote:Hindi and Punjabi are entirely different orders of magnitude - Hindi has been taught in Western universities for a long time, whereas I've never seen Punjabi offered.

I'm surprised to hear that. I knew Sanskrit had a long history of instruction in the West, but I thought the study of Hindi was quite recent (as is, indeed, the standardisation of the language itself). There have been Punjabi-speakers in Californian for a century or more and both San Jose State and UC Berkeley offer programmes in the language.

Dillon D wrote: Once you get past Cyrillic, Russian ain't all the hard.

That's what I've always said! Russian gender is as "easy" to figure out as Spanish or Italian, and it your wrong, the declensions aren't that different from each other.he sleeps on the bedОн спит на красной кровати. (on spit na krasnoy kravati) (feminine)but if I guess wrong and pick masculine instead, we getОн спит на красном кроватом. (OK...forget that example )